Global Music Sales Down, Legal Music Download Sales Up, French President Sarkozy Becomes a Poster Boy for Copyrights

By: Spacelab Research Staff

The sales of music overall were down in 2007, but online sales were up 40 percent, says a report by International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) released on Thursday.

Which is of course causing an outmoded music industry to once again look in the mirror but refuse to grasp the truth that's in front of them ... they need a more modern business model!

Online and mobile music sales now account for 30 percent of all music revenue. That's pretty heavy, considering that online and mobile sales accounted for exactly zero dollars in 2003.

Some more IFPI numbers ... album sales dropped 15 percent, while unlicensed tracks were downloaded twenty times more often than legal ones. Still, the 40 percent rise in legal, paid downloads netted a cool $2.9 billion across the globe.

Before the deluge of haters email an onslaught of rants on how music should be paid for, let's just say that there's no problem with paying for music, the music industry as a whole has failed to find a way to make good money off of it via the internet. Capice? The industry's failure to innovate has gone beyond funny to beyond sad to just plain mystifying. How can an industry that centers around creative content fail to be creative?

The industry is reigning in on ISP's though, as part of a new strategy. The labels want ISPs to use filtering technology to find users that share unlicensed music and movies via P2P, so they can disconnect users that repeatedly trade unauthorized music.

IFPI Chairman and CEO John Kennedy gave props to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France for agreeing to turn off access for people that were caught repeatedly violating music copyrights.

“A turning tide of opinion is one thing – a concrete programme of action is another. There is only one acceptable moment for ISPs to start taking responsibility for protecting content – and that moment is now. After years of prevarication in the discussion, the French government’s decision to seize the day is deeply refreshing. It shows an urgency of approach that is badly needed in every market where music is today being massively devalued by piracy.”